American artist Alexander Calder lived in Paris between 1926 and 1933, a transformative time during which he created Calder’s Circus, a two-hour long, multi-act performance featuring mechanized sculptures on a miniaturized scale, and made wire sculptures of acrobats and other circus performers. Calder’s drawings between 1931 and 1932 display a line quality similar to that of his wire sculptures; each figure in Tumblers with Spectators appears to be composed of a single line, as though fashioned out of wire, endowing the acrobats with infinite flexibility. This drawing also mimics the transparency of the sculptures, making visible the line between the floor and the wall through the performers’ bodies.

Sarah Ganz Blythe, ed., Manual: a journal about art and its making (Providence: Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design) Issue 3 (Fall 2014): 1-62.